ISLAMABAD: Pakistan faces tremendous challenges in dealing with large flows of opiates from Afghanistan, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says in its latest publication.

The report “Afghan Opiate Trafficking through the Southern Route” released on Wednesday says along with Iran, the geographic location of Pakistan makes it a major transit point for trafficking of Afghan opiates along the southern route. Balochistan witnesses the largest flows but trafficking through other parts of Pakistan for domestic consumption and global export should not be discounted.

This is particularly important in relation to export from Karachi and numerous consignments that appear to be trafficked by air. Seizures out in the Indian Ocean have also highlighted the potential for traffickers to send sizeable shipments using boats departing from unofficial ports and jetties along the coast of Pakistan and Iran.

Maritime trafficking out of Pakistan seemingly presents opportunities to smuggle large quantities of heroin or opium to third countries quickly, while trafficking using air transport would smuggle smaller quantities of drugs per consignment in order to avoid detection, says the report.

So long as Afghanistan is a major producer of opiates, Pakistan will struggle to contain transnational trafficking. Recent years have shown that Pakistan has intercepted large volumes of opiates – around 18 per cent of the global total of heroin seizures in 2012 and 16.5pc in 2013. This is to the benefit of countries downstream on the southern route.

Published in Dawn June 19th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play